“But is it sin, Father, to prefer one in love above another?”
“It is sin to love man more than God. Short of that, love any one, and any how, that ever thou wilt. The day may come—”
He brake off suddenly. I looked up.
“There were wedded priests in England, not an hundred years ago,” (Note 5) he said in a low voice. “And there were no monks nor nuns in the days of the Apostles. The time may come—Fiat voluntas Tua! Filia, pax tibi.”
Thus gently dismissed, I rose up and came back into the illuminating-room, where I found Joan gathering together her brushes and other gear.
“The last time!” she said, sadly—for she returns to her home to-morrow. “Why is it that last times are always something sorrowful? I am going home to my Ralph and the children, and am right glad to do it: and yet I feel very mournful at the thought of leaving you, dear Mother Annora. Must it ever be so in this life, till we come to that last time of all when, setting forth on the voyage to meet Christ our Lord, we yet say ‘farewell’ with a pang to them we leave behind?”
“I reckon so, dear heart,” said I, sighing a little. “But Father Mortimer hath comforted me by words that he saith are from Holy Writ—to wit, that he which loveth God should love his brother likewise. I always wanted to love folks.”
“And always did it, dear Mother,” said Joan with a laugh, casting her arms around my neck, “for all those chains of old rules and dusty superstitions which are ever clanking about you. And I am going to love you, whatever rules be to the contrary, and of whomsoever made. Oh, why did ill folks push you into this convent, when you might have come and dwelt with Ralph and me, and been such a darling grandmother to my little ones? There, now, I did not mean to make you look sorrowful. I will come and see you every year, if it be only for an hour’s talk at the grating; and my Lady, who is soft-hearted as she is rough-tongued, will never forbid it, I know.”
“Never forbid what, thou losenger?” (Flatterer.)
Joan turned round, laughing.